Free Libre by Barbara Hambly Page A

January, but
Dominique got to her feet and rustled to the sideboard for another
cup of coffee for her older brother:
    “You are going to find Zozo for us, aren’t
you, p’tit?”
    He was almost twenty years the elder and six
feet, three inches tall, and smiled inwardly at being called
“little one” by this piece of graceful fluff.
    “If I can. Have you notified the City
Guards?” He looked across at Casmalia Rochier, and her eyes ducked
away from his. “They may display little interest in recovering
artisans’ wives or market-girls when they go missing, but they’re
going to look for the daughter of Louis Rochier, even one born on
the shady side of the street.”
    He didn’t add, And what’s more, you know
it . But it was in his eyes when she looked back at him. What
is it you all aren’t telling me ?
    “My mother tells me Marie-Zulieka disappeared
this morning. When? How? Surely she wasn’t out by herself?”
    “Of course not!” Casmalia’s back went even
more rigid at the suggestion. “She went to the market with her
sister and Marie-Therese Pellicot. But Marie-Therese was taken ill,
and Zozo left little Lucie with Marie-Therese and hurried home to
fetch Tommy, our yardman, to help her get home—”
    Seventeen years of living in Paris brought, Why didn’t she fetch a cab? to January’s lips, only to be
reminded, with a small stab of too-familiar anger, that it was
against the law for a man or woman of color to ride in a cab.
    Except, of course, as the driver or as a
servant perched on the box.
    Catherine Clisson finished softly, “She never
made it home.”
    “Lucie and Marie-Therese waited for almost an
hour,” added Agnes, her round, rouged face puckered with distress
at the memory of her daughter’s illness and the fear that stalked
every libre – the fear of kidnap by slave-traders. Of being
taken out of New Orleans and sold. “Finally Lucie asked one of the
market-women’s children to run see what was keeping Tommy.”
    “That was the first I heard.”
    “Is Marie-Therese all right?”
    Agnes nodded, and her plump shoulders
relaxed. “Just a little indisposition of the stomach, you know. I
tell the girls, never buy snacks and treats from those market-women
unless you know them – who knows what goes into those ices? But of
course girls never listen. She’ll be well for the ball at the Salle
tonight.” There was an edge to Agnes’s voice. Marie-Therese had not
yet found a protector after one season of attending the quadroon
balls at the Salle d’Orleans, and her mother wasn’t going to let
another season go by, however poorly the girl might feel.
    January’s glance returned to Casmalia. “Has
your daughter a lover?”
    “My daughter has accepted a most flattering
offer from Jules Dutuille.” The woman brought forth the name of the
sugar-broker with a slow flourish, like a card-player spreading
four of a kind beneath the noses of her enemies. But January saw
the look that flashed between Catherine Clisson and his sister, and
remembered hearing something – he couldn’t place what – disparaging
about the man.
    And knew the odds were only fifty-fifty that
he’d get a truthful answer to his next question. “Was there anyone
else?”
    “No!” Casmalia dabbed – very carefully – at
her painted eyes with a tiny square of lawn and lace, and Clisson
and Dominique again traded a glance. “Benjamin, it is vital – vital – not only that my daughter be found swiftly, but that
no word of this – this terrible tragedy – be allowed to reach
M’sieu Dutuille’s ears... or those of M’sieu Rochier. Poor M’sieu
Dutuille would be devastated—”
    “I understand.” And he did understand, seeing
how his mother, Bernadette Metoyer and Agnes Pellicot all leaned
forward to catch and sift every word. Gossip was the lifeblood of
the free colored demimonde. The fact that Casmalia Rochier,
devastatingly elegant in her expensive simplicity, was inclined to
boast virtually guaranteed